A "chipper" (when it's not a machine for shredding Christmas trees or wives) is a person who uses many different drugs while avoiding addiction to any specific one. Chippers may, for example, smoke pot on a daily basis, but use "harder" drugs less often enough that they don't become addicts. [1] Chippers may be at risk of becoming addicts.

Virtually every drug can be abused, though some are much more harmful than others, and some are relatively harmless but extremely addictive. Alcohol, amphetamines, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, caffeine, nicotine and opiates are by far the most widely used drugs.

The Health Officers Council of British Columbia released a study in 2005 entitled A Public Health Approach To Drug Control in Canada, which studied the effects of drugs on Canucks. Well, it is assumed everybody knows that all the French-loving arctic hippies do is smoke weed and act "commie".

It has been argued that the War on Drugs has actually increased rates of drug abuse, as was seen during the alcohol prohibition era. Since usage is pushed into back alleys there are no checks on usage, purity, restriction of sales.

It is also an extremely expensive system to maintain, from the cops policing the drugs, the court system and the jail to hold people for a crime that ultimately harms no one but themselves -- assuming it even harms them. The cost per day to keep a drug user in jail varies from 50-300 dollars. Money that could probably be better spent in education and rehab (or just letting them live life with a habit and not forcing adults to degrade themselves because American society still considers the concept of sin and punishment reasonable and valid).

But it looks good for politicians and makes our private prison system lots of profit.